Hasta La Gadget!

Check it, OC’ing freaks — ASUS is apparently planning to debut a new concept motherboard at CeBIT, the aptly titled Marine Cool. The high-end mobo is said to be “unlike any other motherboard on the market,” with the all new backplate being the showstopping feature. It’s said that the backplate features a “micro-porous ceramic” technology, which delivers quicker heat dissipation than existing alternatives. If you’re still scratching your head in a seemingly futile attempt to figure out why this matters, the new cooling tech should allow for components to handle even more extreme overclocking without having to hook up some sort of liquid nitrogen rig. One curious aspect was the decision to include dual SO-DIMM slots in place of traditional desktop-grade DIMM slots, though we don’t suspect that’ll be a deal breaker for those willing to accept sacrifices for maximum cooling. As is always the case with ASUS, there’s no indication of a price or eventual commercialization date, but hopefully we’ll get more from the show floor in Hannover.

[Via HotHardware, thanks JC]

Filed under: Desktops, Peripherals

ASUS to showcase Marine Cool concept motherboard at CeBIT originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS just unveiled the quad-band P835, a Windows Mobile 6.1-powered smartphone with a 3.5-inch WVGA (800-by-480-pixel) touchscreen and an HSDPA 7.2 data radio.

Engadget Mobile reports that the handset comes with Opera Mobile, a trackball that seems oddly redundant with the touchscreen, a 528MHz Qualcomm 7201A processor, and six to seven hours of talk time on a single charge, according to the company.

There’s also a 5-megapixel camera with auto-focus, 4GB of internal storage, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR (Enhanced Data Rate), and an A-GPS radio. Interestingly, the phone can double as a WiFi access point to share its cellular data connection with up to ten other wireless devices, according to the report. No word yet on a price, carrier support, or release date, but it’s coming.

Between the Commercial Times and DigiTimes, no secret is safe within ASUS. The former is reporting (via the latter) that ASUS will launch its second generation ultra-thin Eee PC in April as followup to the Eee PC S101. The Eee PC Shell, as it’s supposedly called would mark a welcome departure from ASUS’ staid alphanumeric naming convention and is said to be easier to carry than the S101 while bringing higher specs and a longer battery life for just NT$17,000 – 20,000 ($486 – $571) — that’s well below the S101’s $699 suggested retail price. The name Shell, of course, would seem to imply a curved, clamshell design. Now, with one of ASUS’ favorite events, CeBIT, starting next week, we’d expect an announcement to be days away if the rumor is true — a high probability what with the launch of yesterday’s Eee PC firesale and Intel’s new CULV processors for ultra-slim laptops prepped for a March launch.

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS Eee PC ‘Shell’ ultra-thin netbook launching in April? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Feb 2009 06:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS‘ heavy-hitting W90Vp-X1 gaming-friendly laptop has shown up on Newegg. The 18.4-inch behemoth’s sporting a 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9600, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4870 X2, WUXGA resolution, 6GB DDR2 RAM, 320GB HDD at 7200RPM. Of course, with specs like that, you weren’t expecting it to come cheap, were you? The retailer’s demanding a $2,200 ransom to take it home. Admit it, you’re just happy it’s an ASUS machine with no “Eee” in sight.

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS W90 gaming laptop now listed on Newegg originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’d already heard that ASUS was at least considering using Android on its Eee PC netbook, and seen it wrangled onto one unofficially (see above), but ASUS’s Samson Hu has now offered a few more details that indicate just how serious the company is about the XP/Linux alternative. Apparently, ASUS has already allocated a team of engineers to work on the Android-based netbook, which Hu says could be ready by the end of the year, although the company isn’t committing to actually releasing a product until it sees how things pan out. No further word on ASUS’s other Android experiments, unfortunately, but it seems safe to bet that ASUS is devoting even more attention to those, at least if its latest timeline is any indication.

[Via GadgetMix.com]

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS experimenting with Android-based netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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